Privacy Notice

Who we are

Metropolitan is a division of MMI Group Ltd (hereafter referred to as MMI), a registered long-term insurer and authorised financial services provider. Metropolitan will maintain the confidentiality of your personal information and comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA) when processing your personal information.

This notice applies to South African entities operating under the Metropolitan brand, its subsidiaries, operating divisions, business units, licensed entities, management-controlled entities and activities.

Metropolitan comprises of the following products and services:

Insurance products

Investment products

Retirement products

Health benefits

Financial planning services

Pension fund administration

Investment management services

The purpose of the notice

The purpose of this notice is to inform Metropolitan’s clients about the type and use of personal information the company collects, the ways in which it is collected, the sharing, protection and storage thereof.

What is personal information?

The term ‘personal information’, as used in this notice, applies to information that may be used to identify an individual or a juristic person (i.e. for example a registered company).

POPIA defines personal information as “information which relates to an identifiable, living, natural person, and where it is applicable, an identifiable, existing juristic person.” The person to whom personal information relates is referred to as the “data subject”.

When personal information is collected, the company will indicate the purpose for the collection and whether the information required is compulsory or voluntary.

How does Metropolitan collect personal information?

The company collects information either directly from the data subject, the employer or through financial services intermediaries. In certain instances, Metropolitan may appoint third parties to collect information on its behalf. The source from which personal information was obtained, if not directly from the data subject, will be disclosed.

Use of personal information

After obtaining consent, the personal information collected or held by MMI may be used, stored, transferred or disclosed or shared for the following purposes:

Providing on-going administration services for the duration of the contract.

Fulfilling a transaction on request of a data subject.

If permission is given, Metropolitan may use your personal or other information to tell you about products, services and special offers from the company or other subsidiaries of MMI.

Sharing of personal information

Metropolitan will only share your personal information with third parties if you have consented to such disclosure. If consent has been obtained, the company may share your personal information with persons or organisations within and outside of MMI.

Where Metropolitan discloses personal information to intermediaries, other financial institutions, insurers or any other third parties, the third parties will be obliged to use that personal information only for the reasons and purposes it was disclosed for. Metropolitan may be obliged to disclose your personal information to the extent that it is required to do so by law, in connection with any legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings, or for the purposes of protecting the interest of clients, for example fraud prevention or to give effect to an agreement.

Securing personal information

Metropolitan will take all reasonable technical and organisational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information. The company will store all the personal information in secured environments, for example on secured servers in a protected data centre.

How you can review and correct your personal information

You can request to review your personal information contained in Metropolitan’s records at any time to correct or update the information. If the purpose for which your personal information was requested initially does not exist anymore, for example you no longer have a contract with it, you may request information held by the company to be removed. However, Metropolitan can decline your request to delete the information from its records if other legislation requires the continued retention thereof or if it has been de-identified.

Updating of this processing notice

Metropolitan may update this notice periodically and an updated version may be requested, for example through a postal request or through an email notification addressed to the contact details provided below.

Employee Training on Cyber Security and Data Privacy

Employee Training on Cyber Security and Data Privacy forms part of ongoing compliance training. Cyber Security training is currently further required as a basic compliance training that all employees must complete. As part of the POPIA management programme, there is a specific focus on training, awareness as well as communication that will cover data privacy, data security and more detailed cyber security training as mandatory compliance training to all staff. The POPIA management programme is actively managed at MMI Group level with the participation of all business entities and subsidiaries of MMI.

To deal with Cyber Security and Data Security two separate centralised functions exist within MMI. The IT Security environment includes managing cyber security as a capability and the Data Management environment deals with the aspects of data privacy and extended data security which is enabled through IT security.

These two functions report into the MMI Group COO and is coordinated to work closely together to ensure coordinated efforts to best deliver on the relevant requirements.

Metropolitan’s Privacy Policy

If you have any questions about this notice or Metropolitan’s treatment of your personal information, please address an email to dataprivacy@mmiholdings.co.za.